


The Forest

by cano



Series: dragonslayer [1]
Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: 2013 LCK feels, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Demon King AU, Demon King Faker, General Dade, M/M, Oracle's Elixir, and other good season 3 meta that we get nostalgic for, so... Samsung Blue and SKT K anyone?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22273963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cano/pseuds/cano
Summary: Deep in the forest there lives a Demon.
Relationships: Bae "dade" Eojin/Lee "Faker" Sanghyeok
Series: dragonslayer [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603324
Kudos: 12





	The Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Demon King x General Fantasy AU that had been in my drive since 2013s. I’d forgotten about it until now, but thankfully my past self had backed up the file and wrote out a summary (in Korean, but I’ll take what I can get) so I had that to help me figure out the rest of the story. The bones were there, it was the matter of how to flesh it out.
> 
> This is partially my effort to clean up my drive, partially because I WROTE GOOD back in 2013-2014 and I'm trying to get back that feeling, and finally, this is part trying to get some closure instead of living in the past ~~as you can see I'm doing great on letting go, re-writing 2013 fics~~
> 
> Warnings for uh... character death and umm... violence? Sort of? I've never tagged for something like this okay I'm so sorry.

_This is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, this is how the world ends._

_Not with a bang but with a whimper._

* * *

Deep in the forest there lives a Demon. A Demon with a capital D, meaning this one is a Named One, and not just any of your Named Ones either. This is the Demon King himself, the unholy ruler of the Other Realm that reigns over one hundred and eight chief Named Ones who each rule anywhere from a couple hundred to some thousand lesser demons with a lowercase d.

  
What he’s doing in the forest, Dade doesn’t know (and doesn’t care), but it does _wonders_ for the land prices and his bills because no one wants to live near here, plus the authorities are too scared to come close enough to ever collect taxes.

  
The forest’s lands are really fertile, so he can grow most of his food with no problem. Sometimes if he’s craving meat, he’ll go out and hunt deer and rabbits - straying carefully away from the center of the forest, the deep of the forest.

  
Dade likes his life the way it is.

  
Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

  
(Well, if you want to get technical, it wasn’t the Fire Nation. But I am the storyteller, and I get to exercise my poetic license from time to time.)

  
It wasn’t the Fire Nation, but the neighboring nation did attack, and every able men are drafted to fight. They don’t come for Dade. No one ever does.

  
However, circumstances change.

* * *

  
The neighboring nation suddenly grows in power. Rumors circulate that the monarch of the said nation has successfully made a deal with a Demon, with a capital D. Others say he has completed some evil ritual and became a demon himself — with a lowercase d — and there are others that say it’s the Demons themselves that are attacking this nation. All the basis of the rumors involve _demon_ , capital or otherwise, because no one doubts that some sort of supernatural force is at hand here. However, others still murmur that no-one has enough power to attempt such summons. The power in these lands have faded away long ago.

  
When they see a Wyrm as big as a tower of a castle rising from the enemy lines and shrieking, red eyes burning with hatred, they know the rumors aren't just rumors anymore.

  
They need a way to fight back.

* * *

  
Very unfortunately for Dade, they’re desperate. 

Desperate enough to come to the deep of the forest.

* * *

It’s been a moon since Dade has heard of the Wyrm sighting, when there is a knock at his door.

  
It can’t be. No one ever comes here, _deep_ into the forest. Dade has just decided it’s his imagination when the knock returns, twice this time, unmistakable knuckles-to-the-wood sound. Huh.

  
He opens the door, just a crack. Just to check it isn’t some wandering deer rubbing its growing-out horns, or a bear that had an itch — it isn’t, he knows what those sound like compared to human-bones-and-flesh rapping on wood, but still, one can hope.

  
“Hello?” 

(And as it is, most hope is futile.)

“Greetings, we are from the king’s army,” says a man dressed in opulent robes, the kind Dade has never seen before. He is about as tall as Dade is, but the man’s posture is straighter, head high, and there’s something about the man that makes him seem taller than he actually is — the way he holds himself, maybe.

  
Dade wills himself not to cower as he asks, “And how may I help you?” while conveniently not saying _because if I don’t, I don’t want to know what might happen to me._

  
“We have a small… task to perform.” The robed man says, and takes a second glance at Dade. “You were not enlisted.” 

  
It’s a statement, not a question, but still Dade feels the need to justify himself, “No one came for me.” 

  
“Hm,” the man says, in a way that has Dade feeling inadequate even if he said it as neutrally as humanly possible. “In any case, I would like to inspect your house. Please.” 

  
The man tacked on that _please_ at the end of the sentence, but Dade gets the feeling it’s more for his benefit — as in, _if you don’t say yes it might get very painful for you quickly._

  
“There’s nothing here,” Dade tries, almost desperately. 

  
“It will only take a second,” the man insists, and the sheer _aura_ of men with armor and weapons behind the robed man are more than enough to convince Dade. He steps aside, letting the man (and an ordered single-file of armored men behind him) into the cottage.

  
The man in the robes holds out a chain with a symbol hanging on it, a pendant — and just _stands_ there.

  
Dade holds his breath and waits for — something, anything — an explosion, fireworks. Nothing.

  
The man with the robes and all the others _really_ aren’t doing anything much, just standing around, standing still for like a good minute. Dade can’t help but stare sort of helplessly at what kind of madness it is. Some of the knights seem to be on it as well, getting antsy and chatty.

“Honestly, I don’t see why we’re doing this —”

  
“This is an imperial order, meaning it’s _directly from the king his majesty himself_ —”

  
“There’s no way that in a _shack_ like this out in the _middle of the woods_ , we’re going to find—” 

The pendant glows blue, and suddenly everyone stills.

  
"The blood of the dragon," a person whispers, in a voice that might be of awe.

  
"Our leader," the man with the robes says. "Our _General_."

* * *

  
The man with the robes is Mata, the court sorcerer. Two knights — Looper, Acorn — keep watch on him with hawk-like eyes for any signs that Dade might attempt an escape similar to ten minutes ago when all the people crammed in his tiny house bowed to him, and Dade ran, ran because he was _freaked_ , okay.

  
Imp — a marksmen with a crossbow slung over his shoulder — is the only one that feels like talking, evidently. 

  
"Your kind are dragonslayers," he chatters excitedly. "Back when there were actual dragons around, your ancient, _ancient_ ancestors are the ones who battled them into oblivion. One of your clan." Imp taps the blue pendent that Dade now wears around his neck, the very pendent that made everyone go crazy and start bowing to him.

  
"And anyway, you aren't actually descended from a dragon, don't worry. The thing about 'the blood of the dragon' is because your ancestor bathed in that yucky stuff. And that kind of blessed-slash-cursed your bloodline forever."

  
"Which is it?" Dade asks.

  
"I told you, both. Blessed-slash-cursed." Imp tells him. "The blessing is that no magic can harm you - you're magic-proof. Poof." He laughs like a child. Mata glares and yells at the marksmen to shut up.

  
"And general longevity, no diseases or sicknesses - that kind of stuff." he finishes, counting on his fingers.

  
"What about the cursed part?"

  
"Huh?" 

  
"What about the cursed part?" Dade repeats, more slowly. Imp's eyes shift ever so little, but not enough for Dade to catch. Behind them, Mata stiffens but doesn't say anything.

  
"I don't remember~ I think it was something like you have bad digestion or something~" Imp says in a singsong voice and laughs again as Mata yells something in frustration, and then the laugh turns into a panicked yell as Mata raises his staff threateningly. All the King’s guards laugh, and Dade just stares. 

* * *

  
The training that he receives for three weeks makes him throw up and want to die. By then the nation is razed into almost nothingness with just their kingdom left, the castle being the sole thing left standing amongst the rubble.

  
Then Dade is put into the battlefield.

  
No magic can harm him, and there must be more to this ‘dragon’s blood' thing because Dade is practically invincible, tearing through enemies, armor and flesh and bone alike. There is hope once again, and the nearly-destroyed nation pulls itself together, and one by one, begins to overwhelm its enemy. 

  
Five months later there is peace. The head of the neighboring king is chopped off and paraded throughout. The emperor of their nation — he is an emperor now since the neighboring kings, those that are left anyway, surrendered the crown — unties all the lands under his name and proclaims peace for all.

* * *

  
Of course, peace never lasts long.

* * *

  
One morning, the skies are red. Crimson like blood and the sun is nowhere to be seen. There is light, but no _source_.

  
_Kill the Demon King and drench the land in his blood. Only then shall this curse fade_ , the Sybil rasps.

* * *

  
“And where does this Demon King live again?”

  
Dade, Mata, Looper, Acorn and two other knights are standing over a table, heads bent in discussion — how to kill the Demon King, part one: find out where he lives — and Mata glares at Acorn, because what sort of _idiot_ doesn’t know where the Demon King lives; every single child knows the saying, every single person in the kingdom knows to _stay away from the forest, because the Demon lives there_ — and Acorn just shrugs, as if to say _I’m just making sure_.

  
“In the center of the forest. Here,” Mata taps the map — magical, of course, like most things the sorcerer owns — where a chunk of it is glowing a eerie blue. It pulsates, almost like a _heartbeat_ , and it fades out around the edges, giving them a good idea of where the Demon King’s territory is. The trees surrounding the forest are dense and rich, depicted picturesquely real — huh.

  
“Wait, can you — is there a way to make things _bigger_ on this map?” Dade asks.

  
Mata sighs his hourly _I-am-dealing-with-an-idiot_ sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose, but does flick his hand over the forest and just— _enlarges_ the area Dade was pointing at.

  
“Huh. That’s the cottage I used to live in,”

  
The court sorcerer just looks at him. An _are-you-serious-you-just-made-me-do-fancy-magic-just-to-see-your-old-house_ look and also a _what am I, google maps?_

(Yes, reader, I am aware they do not have google maps. But I can’t think of any other metaphor to describe that particular face Mata is making when Dade is using him as human google maps.)

“So wait,” Acorn jumps in before Mata can cobbler Dade to death with his staff — _immunity to magic_ be damned, he can still _hit_ him — “You’re saying you know the forest? At least _that_ part?” he adds when it looks like Dade will protest any knowledge of the forest at all.

  
And what can Dade say to that? _No, I don’t know the part of the forest I have been living in since I was born?_

  
So he answers, “Yes,” if reluctantly.

* * *

  
Mata is evil incarnate and all things wrong with his life is Mata’s fault, as Dade is inwardly spewing inappropriate-for-Royal-Court type of curses underneath his breath, and scouting the forest where he used to live in his cottage. 

  
Twenty steps. Fifty. The woods start to get thicker and after another fifty steps, he can _feel_ something in the air — he’s getting closer to the territory of the Demon King.

  
There’s a reason he always, always stayed away from the _heart_ of the forest.

  
He steels himself; the fate of the kingdom rests on him — the red skies above him do well to remind him of that. He can’t turn back now. He steps into the forest — 

And he runs into an invisible wall.

—

"I need something to make me _see_ ," Dade says irritably. He had made a beeline to the court sorcerer as soon as he returns. “This—” he holds up the red lenses that Mata gave him merely hours ago, _use it if you need to detect magic_ being Mata’s instructions, “—isn't going to cut it. I need something stronger.” 

  
Mata stares at him.

  
“There are borders. Barriers,” Dade tries to explain. "I can’t get past them if I can’t see - these are not strong enough, and they don’t last much anyway.” 

  
The red lenses are cracked, case in point. Dade imagines Mata can’t be too pleased with that, but Mata is never pleased with him, _ever_.

  
“Right,” says Mata, in that ever incredulous, dubious tone of his voice he uses whenever he’s in Dade’s presence. Dade would like to think Mata uses that tone with him just to keep him on edge and remind Dade he doesn’t, and never will quite trust him all the way, but he’s seen Mata use that tone with the _emperor_ — and with anyone and everyone other than Looper and Imp, to be completely honest — so he can never be sure.

“There’s always _this_.”

  
Mata holds up a small vial with pink liquid sloshing inside. The liquid shimmers, an almost eerie feel to it.

  
“What’s that?” Dade feels stupid for asking, but _hey_ , he isn’t a court sorcerer, born and bred to know things such as enchanted water or something like that. He’s just an ordinary man, who happens to have the 'dragon’s blood'.

  
“Elixir. _Oracle’s_ Elixir, to be precise.” Mata hands him the vial. Dade stares at it curiously, so what is it supposed to do?

  
“You drink it,” says the sorcerer, with an expression of _duh_ on his face. “No-! Not here - don’t -” he snatches it back, when Dade tries to uncap the vial and drink it to see what effect it would bring.

  
“Gods be damned, you utter _moron_ ,” Mata pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is rare. And illegal, too, so use it sparingly. _Only when you need it._ ” he almost snarls that last line.

  
“It’s _illegal_?” Dade is surprised enough that if he still had been holding the vial, he’d have dropped it.

  
“Shout it out to the entire court, would you? _Yes_ , it’s illegal. It’s what was used centuries ago, back when magic had been a lot more prevalent in the lands. This - ” he taps the vial. “Is what would allow one to see the flow of magic itself. It got banned even before the mana of the kingdom faded, so there’s almost none left.” He hands the vial back. 

  
“Take a sip in order to see what your eye cannot. One sip will last five minutes.”

  
Dade stares at the elixir in his hands. 

“Why was this banned?”

  
Mata pauses. He pauses for a while, and looks up to meet Dade squarely in the eye.

  
Mata’s eyes, more precisely his irises, are faded— looking closely, the pupil looks like it has been chipped at the edges, like tiny wolves have taken chomps out of it. Dade fights the urge to flinch away and holds his gaze.

  
“Because,” Mata says, slowly. “Eventually the elixir would take your eyes, as payment for true sight.”

* * *

  
The Oracle’s Elixir does its job, because he can _see_. Dade takes a sip of the simmering pink liquid and he is hit with a pang in his hindbrain, and winces he feels a migraine spread to his temples. When he opens his eyes again, everything is razor-sharp, _alive_ with energy and mana thrumming among the vein and lifeline of the lush forest; it almost hurts to see. He can believe now, about how the elixir would take one’s eyesight.

  
Taking a deep breath, he starts into the deep of the forest, avoiding the now-obvious walls of the borders. It’s so easy, the mana _calls_ to him to show him the way. With the elixir giving him true sight, Dade can see how prominent the magic is in the heart of the forest, how the mana _sings_ here, unlike in the center of kingdom, where the mana has all but faded. _Dead. Alive._

  
He walks.

  
It's so _easy_ now, the path is clear as day, the walls so easy to avoid. Other than the invisible walls, there isn’t much in the way of obstacles. The only hardship he had so far was the gate — if it could be called a hardship, that is. The gate had been rusted shut with what seemed like years of disuse, and Dade had anticipated some sort of a _magic-enchanted resistance_ from it at the very least, but just a hard enough push and it had given way, groaning only in they way old unused things do.

  
_Surprised_ is an understatement for what Dade is feeling. He eyes the walls — the visible ones that surround the gate — with wariness, taking in the stone-and-rubble, the unearthly vines that circle and wind around them in an intricate, almost-beautiful pattern, but they don’t make any funny movements so he decides it’s safe for now to progress.

  
It takes another fifty or so steps to reach the gate that leads to inside of the castle and _holy freaking shit_ , this whole place was huge. The thick of the forest had seemed much smaller from outside of it, and maybe it was the magic playing tricks on his eyes. Dade stares for a moment, thinking, _I am here — I am here in the castle of the Demon King._

  
Another hard yank and the grand double-doors to the castle interior opens, much easier than the wall gates. The ease at which the gates open for him indicate to Dade that these ones see much more use, maybe daily. Dade inwardly makes a note — so, the Demon doesn’t go _outside_ outside, but he does go outside. That thought makes him laugh a little.

  
The castle isn’t as grand as it seems on the outside — inside, it feels more — _homely_ , almost. 

  
There’s a coziness to the interior that he cannot quite name nor put a finger on, albiet empty of people and white-noise chatter Dade came to associate with castles. All the surfaces are swept and clean, the windows are large and let in copious amounts of sunlight — or had there been sunlight, it would have — and all the objects placed inside, while sparse, have touches of lives present, well-used but pristine.

  
Lost in thought while debating about the decoration, Dade jumps when he hears someone — or _something_ , not sure — behind him cough; quietly. How did anyone, or anything sneak up on him? 

  
He turns, on high alert, and —

  
There is — a boy — a lad, or someone young enough. He doesn’t look quite a man, and his scruffy black hair and unkempt robes do not help him look any more mature when he blinks at Dade. Dade stares, well, because he really wasn’t expecting anyone besides the Demon King, and the halls were kind of empty. But maybe even Demons need servants and waiting-boys? 

  
“Hello,” says the boy, almost carefully.

  
“Hello,” replies Dade, out of the manners that Mata had painstakingly forced onto him. Very painfully. It takes everything in him _not_ to bow.

  
“Um, I had not been _expecting_ — no one _notified_ — did you make an appointment, by chance?” the boy asks in one breath, and now Dade’s the one that blinks; you have to make an _appointment_ to meet with the Demon King? 

  
“Um, no, I didn’t realize that I needed an appointment— Is anyone busy? Did I— will it be a long wait?” What the _fuck_ is he saying, _waiting_ for an appointment? For what? To kill the Demon King? Dade curses the court sorcerer to hell and back for drilling _manners_ into him, of all things.

  
“No, no!” replies the boy. “It— normally — just that no one— I mean,” he gathers himself, than peers at Dade more closely. “You are not— you are not a demon. Or a Greater — I mean, _are_ you? Of course, I may be being presumptuous, but generally, they tend to teleport, and my borders are meant to prevent that, and they send ravens for messages, or just use a long-distance magical fire message… Of course, _theoretically_ , not that I have ever received a raven or a fire message...” 

  
The boy is rambling, and Dade cuts in. “No, I’m human.” 

  
“Oh! Of course.” Now he looks slightly flustered. “How could I have not— wait a minute, then _how_ did you get here?” 

  
“I walked.” 

  
“You— you _walked_ —” 

  
“It’s only a short walk from the cottage I used to live in, and I know the forest pretty well, and yeah,” he trails off, almost embarrassed. The boy looks flabbergasted.

  
“Are you lost?"

  
“No!”

  
“Why are you here then…?”

  
“I’m here to kill the Demon King.” Dade says, and he feels like an asshole to the boy working here for saying this, but he’s seriously off-track, “I am sent by the emperor to kill the Demon King and to bathe the land in his blood, so this curse of the sunless mornings and red skies will end,” 

  
There is silence for a few awkward moments where Dade wants to _stitch his lips shut a_ nd bang his head on the wall, because _why_. Great, now the headservant-boy-person is going to think he is a weirdo at the best, and psychotic killer at the worst and run away screaming bloody murder and warning the Demon King.

  
“Well, you have come to the right place. I am the Demon King.” says the boy.

  
Dade stares.

  
Eventually, he gains back enough of his wits to utter out a, “Huh?” 

* * *

  
They fight. Not with swords and magic, but with _words_.

And not magical words. Not the kind that Mata sometimes utters in a furious tone if Imp gets on his nerves enough (and eventually, Imp _always_ ends up getting on Mata’s nerves, so like almost everyday).

To put it simply, they argue.

“I am not about to kill — a _child_!” Dade sputters.

  
“How dare you!” The Demon King retorts, _very much like a child_ , in Dade’s humble opinion. “I am one-thousand and five hundred years old, and it has been _more_ than a week since I have completed my coming-of-age ritual! I am a full grown Demon Greater, and I am _not_ a child!” 

  
Dade is speechless for a second, then suddenly he realizes something: “Wait, I thought Demons came of age by five hundred, and even if they’re late, they don’t take longer than a thousand to mature fully,” he accuses, suspicion laced in his voice. 

  
“And you say it’s only been a week since you have done the traditional coming-of-age ritual, and by that point, a Demon is still considered youngling, at least not until a full moon has passed,” he finishes, trying not to be too smug at the child’s — er, Demon King’s — face, going rapid-pale. 

  
Dade secretly thanks Mata for the hellish strategy overview that the sorcerer gave him about demons — aka “power lecture about the history of demons and their culture, traditions and rituals.” Because _understanding one’s culture_ is important when you are striving to defeat them. Right.

  
Anyways, coming of age isn’t just in a symbolic sense, nor is it just numeric. It is a ritual in which when a Demon’s power fully blossoms, the physical shell that they use to manifest within the physical world, Dade’s world adjusts; the mana flowing through their bodies ever so freely — it means a Demon is truly a _Demon_ from that moment on.

  
Whatever happened to the Demon King to have not come of age for more than a thousand years, he is still a boy in the eyes of the demon race.

  
“Thereby, you are still a child and I am not about to kill you,” Dade concludes, a bit too theatrical but he thinks the Demon King deserves that.

  
“However…” The Demon King starts, but trails off when he cannot think of an argument against Dade’s, admittedly, very foolproof defense.

  
“Yeah, I’m still not going to kill you,” says Dade, a little warily.

  
The Demon King turns away and Dade swears he could have heard _we shall see_ muttered under someone’s breath but he chooses to ignore it.

* * *

They can’t agree on a decision, so the Demon King gives a tour, because _why not_.

“And these are—” and here the Demon King makes some kind of noise unpronounceable by a human tongue, presumably to inform Dade of what species they are. It’s seven syllabus long and completely goes over his head.

  
“—plants. Oh, please do not touch the flowers, they produce a toxin that induces hallucinations and leads to, eventually, death,” The Demon King informs him almost _cheerfully_. Dade freezes, and carefully retracts his hand from where he was reaching it to touch the flower. 

  
Very slowly, because the vines are moving, and some of them are poking at him. Not with the flower or the thorns (thank the gods) but with the flesh-like vine parts. Some of its stem is slowly encircling him — not enough to _choke_ but threatening imprisonment. 

  
Without prompting, the Demon King mutters something about _her_ being “curious” and “trying to be friendly” and “will not hurt you, at least not on purpose”.  
“I thought those were decoration,” Dade says, stupidly. Of course the very threatening and pointy vines (albeit with pretty flowers blooming on it) served a rather… utilitarian purpose.

  
“Sort of a two-way protection, really,” The Demon King says offhandedly, as if this is a common misconception made by most people who regularly trespass in his territory. “The borders block anyone try to magic their way through or who do not see truly. And the plants —” he pauses here, and retracts.

  
“The plants — they kill anyone who crosses with malicious intent.” The Demon King says in lieu of an explanation. 

  
“I came to kill you,” Dade lets that hang in the air, questioning the intelligence of the plants. What kind of protection plan are you if you let a sword-wielding, fully-armored knight with dragon’s blood, charged with a quest to _kill the Demon King and bathe the land in his blood_ — it really can’t get any more specific than that about his malicious intent — through?

  
“But you did not,” replies the Demon. “The moment you found out I was, to quote you, a child, and barely two weeks done with the coming-of-age ritual. You did not.” and his face is funny, as if he’s trying to make an expression he’s not familiar with, or trying to hide an expression and not succeeding at it.

  
“And how would the _plants_ know that?”

  
“They are smart,” The Demon King states, as if obvious. If he were human, Dade has a sneaking suspicious he would have _shrugged_. 

  
“Smarter than you?”

  
“Hmm,” he actually considers that question. “I suppose. I feel they hide it, to make me feel better about myself.”

  
Dade cannot believe he is actually here — here in the center of the forest, surrounded by magic and mana, being poked at by magical plants (that didn’t kill him), and talking to the Demon King about the supposed intelligence of the plants that are smarter than a human. 

  
“Why would the plants try to make you feel better about yourself?” Dade asks, his mouth on autopilot, for the need to say something.

  
He regrets it when he sees the Demon King freeze and make a thousand expressions behind a facade of blanketed calm, a mask of nothingness. The Demon pauses, as if hesitating before the next words are out of him. Dade wonders what it could be, for the Demon King to make such an expression.

  
“No one has crossed my borders for more than a thousand years,” says the Demon King, almost whispers it.

  
With a start, Dade realizes that the Demon King is _lonely_.

* * *

  
Dade supposes, that it would have come down to this, eventually.

  
“Fight me,” the Demon King growls, and he blasts Dade, fully armored with a sword and all, with a single word and it’s only Dade’s battle-honed reflexes that save him in the nick of time.

  
Dade turns around and sees the entirety of the forest behind him — the wall of the castle, the trees that lead into the forest, grass, flowers, the land they grown on and all — blasted into oblivion from a single word uttered by the Demon King.

  
It’s then he realizes that if he and the Demon King fought _truly_ — and if the Demon King fought to kill Dade — Dade would not have a standing chance in hell. 

  
Suddenly the all the fight drains out of the Demon King and with an inhale, all the killing aura leaves him, making him less _unholy ruler of the Otherworlds_ and more the young man that Dade saw when he first walked into the Demon King’s castle.

  
The Demon King sighs, closes his eyes and waves his hand in the air. Instantly the burnt land is fertile once more and Dade gapes in disbelief as trees and flowers and grass burst from the earth and regrows in a matter of seconds. The forest is there again, looking like it was never gone in the first place.

  
Dade is still left gaping as the Demon King turns and walks back toward the castle.

* * *

  
Dade finds the Demon King tending to his plants inside the castle. 

  
"You… you have no need to do that." he says. "Watering and caring for your plants, I mean - you can just wave your hand in the air and they’d be _healthy forever…”_

  
The Demon King sighs. “Yes, but where would the beauty be? What would be the point if I just grew things with a flick of my fingers and it is there?”

  
_Because you can_ , Dade wants to say. _Because you can and shouldn't that be enough reason for you to do it?_

  
The Demon King seems to read his mind, because he instantly looks so old and distant and sad in ways that a human can’t even possibly begin to fathom.

  
“I could,” he starts, gently caressing a leaf with his free hand. The plant is brilliant blue and eight feet tall and glows with a faint light and it’s nothing like anything that exists in the world (at least in the human world anyway), and it trembles under the touch. 

  
“I could. Yes. But I would not be able to delight in the way they change from day to day, and the plant would not be able to depend on its own strength to grow,” he looks back to Dade. “I— ” 

  
He cuts himself off and his expression looks so pained, like he was about so say something he’d regret.

  
The Demon King rushes away. His gait is stiffer than usual, and Dade doesn’t comment on it.

* * *

  
“You could end this famine, with your power,”

  
“No, I could not.”

  
“Why?” he almost growls, frustrated. He can’t kill this child-Demon (Greater or not) so he’s trying to look for a solution, why not go for one that might be right in front of him? This Demon doesn’t seem too inclined to indiscriminately kill all humans, so far.

  
“Because,” the Demon King says with false patience that he doesn’t have, _pretending_ — pretending to be the older of the two and treating Dade as if he is the child. “I am a Demon,” he waves a hand and a flower, unearthly beautiful with scarlet petals and definitely not of this world, pops into the air out of nowhere.

The Demon King gently grasps the flower by its blue-green stem, and holds it out to Dade, as if inviting him to take it. Dade does.

  
The flower turns to ashes in his hand.

  
“And Demons cannot coexist with humans.” finishes the Demon King, watching the ashes of the flower that once bloomed in his hand.

  
Dade understands, if painfully.

* * *

  
Dade almost forgets about the kingdom, the curse — being with the Demon King is surreal and it’s almost as if time stops for him when they are spending time together. He feels as if he is lost in another world, and maybe he _is_.

  
Almost. 

  
Because, see, the curse hits him too. The curse hits him _first_ , in fact. Dade wakes one morning after the fateful encounter that he lost count of so long ago only to cough up blood, blood, and more blood. His hand shakes and he cannot see straight. 

  
“I’m dying,” he realizes.

  
“The curse,” says a voice behind him. Startled, Dade tries to whip around but finds he’s too weak to do so, and the world blurs before him with the effort. When his vision is back, the Demon King is helping Dade to his feet, and laying him back on the bed. He looks troubled. 

  
“It is the curse — my power,” says the Demon King, like a confession.

  
“How— but I — no magic can harm me,” says Dade, confused.

  
“This is no simple spell, nor magic. Oh, how I _wish_ it was,” the Demon King spits, filled with more hatred than Dade ever saw, than the time that he burned the forest down to nothing with just a look in his eyes and a single word spoken. 

  
“It is more powerful than any magic, comparing it to magic would be comparing—” he stops abruptly, and takes a breath.

  
“The cause of this is my _existence_. The sun, the red skies — it is only a _fraction_ of the devastation compared to it all. My very self is poison to you humans. I am the cause of it all.” 

  
And Dade understands the prophecy then and there, drench the land in the Demon King’s blood and only then will the sunless mornings and red skies end. The Demon didn’t curse the land, he simply _existed_.

  
“It is fate,” says the Demon King, with a voice graver than the heavens and dreadful enough to move the earth. “when the _Unholy Named One_ comes of age, the skies will turn red, and the Rift dividing the lands will open. All humans shall perish when true Demon King razes the lands and reigns over all."

* * *

“You need to kill me,”

  
“I already told you,” croaks Dade. He’s already weaker. “I won’t,”

  
“Your people will die. Your lands will burn under the crimson sky and the earth shall stop giving. After the famine the disease will overtake the land and kill whoever survived the hunger. And after that, the blood sickness will sweep over the lands, and when all hope is lost, the skies shall crack open and one-hundred-and-eight Greaters, each commanding a thousand more lessers, will slay all there is left.” 

“Why?” 

  
The Demon King looks at him warily. “Why what?” 

“Why do you insist that I kill you?” Dade asks. It’s the question that’s been burning on his mind ever since he met the Demon King, ever since he fought the Demon King and he could have been killed with a flick of the Demon King’s finger, a single word uttered from his lips — and _yet_.

The Demon King is silent for a moment, then opens his mouth.

  
“I will answer that when you answer one question of mine.”

  
“Ask away,” Dade manages. It’s getting harder and harder to talk.

The Demon King takes a deep breath. “Why did you refuse to kill me?” Dade starts to open his mouth, only for the Demon King to cut him off. 

  
“No, _do_ _not_ say it was because I am a child. You must have —” he stops, and tries again, “You —

“There must have been a moment where you realized that people are going to die. Thousands. Millions. Even if not —” The Demon King’s voice shakes. “You must have realized somewhere that _you_ will die.” 

_It was a given_ , Dade doesn’t say. He’s expected to lay his life down for the kingdom, for the emperor, for _the people_ — 

“Is your — is my life worth trading for yours?”

The Demon King looks at Dade in the eye.

“For all of humanity?” 

And _oh_ , Dade can’t breathe because the sudden honest, truthful answer to that is _yes_.

Tense silence fills the room, until the Demon King sighs, “I will tell you. I promised.” 

  
“But I —” _I didn’t answer that question_ , Dade can’t quite make himself say.

  
“No matter,” The Demon King dismisses, “It was answer enough.” 

  
He says with a twist of his mouth, says it like _your hesitation said it all_ and Dade — 

  
He can’t think, there’s so many things running through his head with the revelation that he would sacrifice all he can for the boy he’s known for a few days, for the _Demon King_ , Demon with a capital D and the chief ruler over one hundred and eight Greaters, Named Ones, and only feels dread in his heart _knowing_ ; knowing that the Demon King knows.

“For the longest time, I was alone,” begins the Demon King. 

  
“The fates had fortold of a King more powerful than any Demon can ever dream of, that no-one can oppose. The Demons — all of the demons, Greater or not, while they celebrated such a prophecy, feared such power even amongst their own.” 

  
He pauses here, searching for something to say.

  
“So when I… when I came into being, I was feared.” 

The Demon King falls silent and Dade, for a second, imagines the young Demon King. Younger. Brimming with power and destruction and _alone_.

“No one stayed by my side. Everyone feared me. When I had reached a hundred years, seven different attempts on my life happened. Two hundred years, and I placed a border around my lands.” The Demon King continues.

  
“When I had become five hundred years of age, there was no one to teach me the coming-of-age ritual. I stayed a child for a thousand years more until the power blossomed on its own — and the skies turned crimson, in my wake.” 

  
_Oh_ , thinks Dade. At least that answered one question of why. Why now, of all times? Why choose to end humanity when they had just survived one war? Why not eradicate them during?

  
So _this_ was why.

  
“I knew the fall of humanity was fated with my coming-of-age. All humans will perish, and I would rule over all of what is _left_ — an empire of ashes with a thousands of Demons that kneel at my feet, all who hate me but are too fearful of me.” The Demon King says, bitterness in his voice. 

  
“You wanted to die,” Dade realizes.

  
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” says the Demon King, and Dade feels in his heart to trueness of this statement, of how the unholy ruler of the Demons wanted Dade to slay him, so that the famine would end, so that the fated doom will not befall humanity, so that he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone.

Then the Demon King half-smiles. “And then someone crossed my borders.”

Dade doesn’t understand the meaning of the half-smile, and when he does, it’s too late.

The Demon King guides Dade’s hands, limp and utterly weak, over the hilt of the sword; left hand first, then right, and encircling his own hands around them. It’s then that Dade realizes what he will do.

“ _No_ ,” Dade tries to scream, but words get stuck in his throat. _Don’t_ , he tries to say, but he no longer has the strength to form coherent words.

  
“The fates would be laughing, would they not?” The Demon King asks, a rhetorical question. “All my life I wanted…” he trails off, “And now, more than anything, I find a reason — I wish to... ” and doesn’t quite conclude the thought.

  
The Demon King brings his — and Dade’s — hands, holding the sword, up to his neck. Dade’s arms are trembling, and he is so weak that his fingers are just loosely curled around the hilt; it’s the Demon King that’s doing all of the heavy lifting, no pun intended. Dade can’t move his arms, can’t move a single part of his body; he’s _powerless_ to stop the Demon King.

“' _A hero with dragon’s blood shall be your downfall,_ ” says the Demon King, as if reciting from memory. “ _He will take your heart, and your head_.'”

“And so it shall be,” he utters with finality. There’s something resigned, something at peace about the Demon King as he says those cryptic words, with a ghost of a smile on his face.

  
“Thank you,” the Demon King tells Dade before he slices his own throat.

* * *

When Dade opens his eyes, he’s laying down on a bed with no memory of how he got there.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” 

  
The court sorcerer appears in his view and Dade assumes he’s in the sorcerer’s chambers. The sorcerer honest-to-god looks _worried_ and that puts Dade on edge more than anything else.

  
“How did I get here?” 

  
He finally opens his mouth to ask, because it seems that Mata is unwilling to initiate the conversation.

  
“They carried you,” by ‘they’ Mata usually means the knights, “We found you at the border of the kingdom, just… standing there.” Mata looks like he has many more things he wants to say, but swallows his words. But to be fair, he looks like that most of the time.

  
Silence falls upon both, and Dade, for the life of him, he can’t figure out why he is in bed, or how he got here, and why the sorcerer _let_ him use _his_ bed — 

  
“What is the last thing you remember?” Mata approaches, _careful_ , even.

  
And Dade remembers _Demon King, sword, blood_ , and bolts out of the bed to run to the nearest window and yanks open the curtains — 

  
Sunlight streams through the clear-glass panes, and the skies are blue-gray.

  
The _curse_ , Dade thinks, and then suddenly remembers, or, more accurately, _realizes_ :

“What was the curse, Mata? Not the curse of the Demon King; that’s not a _curse_ , mind you. That was his existence — anyway. The curse that forever would run through my bloodline,” asks Dade, nearly hysteric. “ _What_ _was it_.”

  
“What in the—” Mata looks at Dade as if he’s insane. “ _What_ has gotten into you, all of a sudden?” 

  
“ _The blood of the dragon_!” Dade isn’t sure if he’s shouting or screaming, pick one. “in Imp’s words, I am blessed-slash-cursed. How am I — _What_ is the curse of my bloodline?” 

  
Mata speaks very slowly as if to calm a child. “There were rumors,” he starts.

  
“Do I _seem_ like I care?” says Dade.

  
“Hardly any records of the dragonslayers are left,” continues Mata, pretending as if Dade did not say anything. “And strangely, no record mentions the cursed blood, even when they mention the blessings. So there are only rumors to go on, and it seemed that most dragonslayers died young, or went mad. At least according to the rumors.”

  
“There is one source left… in a very old and… _specific_ … book, I found a record of an — insane man — he claimed that those ‘blessed’ with the dragon’s blood had been cursed long ago, by the very creature his ancestor had stolen the blood and the blessing from.” 

  
Dade doesn’t miss that Mata deliberately avoids what the book had been about, and can’t get the idea that it’s important out of his mind.

  
Mata continues, ignorant — on purpose or accidentally, he can’t tell — reciting in his best prophet voice:

  
_The legend goes, consume a still-beating heart of a dragon, and thou shalt be blessed with the gift of immortal life and youth._

  
_It was never a blessing to begin with. It had been a **trophy** , a stolen one — the owner had cursed the greed of the thief._

  
_No one had succeeded until the first dragonslayer did, and no one succeeded after — with its dying breath, the dragon cursed the slayer, the **thief**. _

  
_And thus the said thief did become immortal and forever young, and forever cursed._

  
“What is the curse,” Dade repeats. He is tired; tired of tales and legends. Tired of myths and bloodlines and curses and tired of sorcerers who tell a story and dance around the question.

  
_You should be able to guess by now_ , Mata’s gaze says. Nevertheless, he tells Dade:

  
“That they would never find happiness. They would never be accepted, forever outcast and shunned. They would never be loved — and if for some reason, if any being would fall in love in them,”

  
Mata speaks the next words very carefully, as if quoting from a book; a prophecy — a _curse_.

_"They will burn until there’s nothing left of them but ashes.”_

The memory flashes in front of Dade’s eyes; The Demon King slitting his own throat with Dade’s hand on the sword. No blood had spurted from the cut; instead, a blazing, white-hot flame had erupted from where the sword had sliced, consuming the Demon and burning all of him to cinders within seconds, except for the head — the said head of the Demon King was — _is_ — untouched and perfect, even in death — 

  
and eyes closed, the Demon King’s face so peaceful.

  
Dade lets go of the sorcerer’s robes and falls to his knees, and half-howls, half-screams a laugh that dissolve into cries.

  
He sounds mad, and maybe he already _was_.

* * *

“Name your price,” the emperor rasps. He is nothing but an old man, emperor in name only. He does not measure up to the true king that Dade saw within the black-haired boy, who could have waved his hand yet still tended to his plants. Who loved the humans that he should have hated. Who cared more for this kingdom than this dying, withering old man ever will. “I will grant you anything you wish, up to a half of my kingdom.”

  
“I wish for nothing but the head of the Demon King.” Dade replies.

* * *

There is a forest, there is a Demon, and there is a tale. There are many tales, of course, of how it really isn’t a Demon, but a hero forgotten by the kingdom. Some say the hero gained immortality by killing the Demon King, while others say he drank the blood of the Demon and become one himself. Far less often, there are a few that say of how the hero went mad, and even fewer who claim that the hero loved the Demon King, and spent his days — whether his days were forever or limited varied with the storyteller — staring at the head of the Demon King, which he claimed as his only gift for saving the kingdom.

  
But all tales begin the same: Deep in the forest there lives a Demon...

* * *

_Were you burned away_

_When the sun rose again?_

_-Alice in Chains, "When the Sun Rose Again"_

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. I basically wrote this because 2013. Faker’s nickname was the Unkillable Demon King, Dade’s was The General, and I thought OH HOW CONVENIENT and the rest happened on its own. Blame my brain for automatically making it angst.
> 
> This is like, my ultimate THROWBACK and WOW MEMORIES fic… Oracle’s Elixir anyone? Samsung Blue and White? Seventeen-year-old boy Faker?????
> 
> If you notice in the fic that I never mention the Demon King by name, it’s very obviously on purpose ~~and while I like to pretend to be subtle, I’m as obvious a bag of bricks thrown at your face. I don’t have a subtle bone in my writing body~~ and there was suppose to be a scene in there, I think, where the Demon King either 1) mentions that no one ever gave him a name, he was born without one, or, 2) he says it’s Faker for a reason THAT I FORGOT and didn’t write down, I had like five drafts of this fic and three were in Korean and I lost all but a half-written one, and scavenged a summary I tweeted back god knows when. 
> 
> But flow-wise it didn’t fit in anywhere and I was tired of writing by then. So bye, somewhat meaningful but not important non-plot point. So I write it here in the notes section so I don’t feel bad about it while not doing the actual work of writing it, yay.


End file.
